I've been walking in Newmillerdam near Wakefield, every Sunday with my dog since she joined our family last September.
The woods are beautiful and my walks are contemplative, mindful and happen at a much slower pace than the rest of my life!
I've been watching the changing seasons there, the change in the light, the ebb and flow of the people that visit, and while we have been walking, I have been writing.
I voiced my intention to write a cycle of songs based on our walks. A song a month taken from the woods, at a WI talk I gave and where I premiered the first song, back in February. Since then, I've been a bit lax. I have the words, that come to me as I walk, photographs of the life we find and recordings of the voices we hear, but I have not managed to set any of them to music as yet.
By my calculations this puts me 2 months behind. I have March and April to set and now May is looming, so I have made a decision to park my materials here, in a blog, for people to read or not, but as a reminder for me to keep working, thinking about and processing my time in the woods with Billie, and to act as a catalyst for the continuation of setting my cycle of songs. I will start with today's thoughts and then we will work backwards, before we catch up with ourselves again, hopefully next week.
I'm hoping this space will also help me to edit as I go along, preparing my words, ready to accept the music when it comes.
Bluebell Wood
The warmth of a late spring morning brings feet, more than before
Walking, before the heat of the day descends
Long shadows lie cool beneath humid skies threatening the day ahead.
Busy footsteps compete with birdsong, and then
A canon of alarm calls, raised as we come near
A forest still damp, not yet brittle with the heat of the sun
This gentle place, waking
Buzzing, trilling, humming yet
Still,
Bracken wakes, familiar paths disappearing, reclaimed by life, long dormant.
And still
We walk
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